


Shades of Blue Interludes ~ Pink Doors and Crossing Voids

by bluedawn



Series: Shades of Blue [6]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Multi-Era, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 15:39:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4143222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedawn/pseuds/bluedawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How did Eight get into that parallel world to rescue Rose in the first place?  Ten gets a push and a little blaze of hope from a tenacious red-head and a determined TARDIS.  Part of the Past, Present and Future/Shades of Blue series</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pink Doors

**Author's Note:**

> The TARDIS leads Donna to a room where she makes some discoveries about the past.
> 
> * Because I think Donna is brilliant and that Rose isn't the only one who deserves a fix-it.

Donna Noble was not happy. She had set out an hour ago for the kitchen and had been wandering the halls ever since, led continually back to a flamboyantly pink door that was assuredly NOT the kitchen. She was, unwittingly, in a battle of wills with the TARDIS. Donna Noble stubbornly continued not to open the pink door because she did not want to open the pink door and the TARDIS continued to give her the pink door because she wanted Donna to open the pink door. Finally, amidst a flurry of muttering that contained mostly the words “martian” and “pillock” with a few “skinny”’s thrown in the mix, Donna gave in.

_She opened the pink door._

Inside was a bedroom. Donna frowned. The Doctor had told her that his ship was sentient (and she didn’t even want to think too hard about that) and it had clearly led her to this room on purpose but what that purpose was, she had no clue. It was a bedroom, yes. A messy bedroom, she thought, frowning slightly again. A bedroom that looked as though its occupant had merely stepped out and would be back to the chaos in a moment. Clothes, women’s clothes, hoodies and jeans mostly, were spread all over the floor, the bed was unmade and rumpled, make-up tubes and powders littered the dresser and there were alien knick-knacks and souvenirs similar to the ones she had in her own room strewn about everywhere. And at that, she was genuinely surprised. Mr. Neat-nick always made sure the TARDIS clutter free. He clearly had never seen this room.

She wandered over to the dresser, figuring if the TARDIS had led her here, she could snoop around and it wouldn’t be snooping...more like investigating. Around the mirror were pictures, in them a smiling middle-aged blonde woman in a velour tracksuit, a young black man in a football jersey, some young 20-something girls dressed up for a night out on the town, a stoic, blue-eyed man in a leather jacket pretending not to be pleased as punch, and an obscenely good-looking Casanova, all featuring somewhere in them a young bottle-blonde woman with a smile like Christmas and laughing eyes. But it wasn’t those enchanting pictures of a happy, full life that drew her in. 

Interspersed with those caught images of a normal London life were picture after picture of the girl, arm linking arm, hand holding hand, shoulder bumping shoulder, and the Doctor, mad hair, mad gob and all. But it was barely a Doctor she recognized. This was a Doctor who smiled with his whole body, a Doctor whose happiness seemed to permeate his very being, a Doctor who radiated life and laughter, even in the still frames of the pictures. 

She had never, in all the time she had spent with him, in all their mad adventures, seen him like this. Had she seen him laugh? Yes. Cavort? Of course. Smile? All the time. But it always seemed to be a happiness of the moment and, all too quickly, it receded and hid behind his quick words and sad brown eyes as he spun them off to the next wonder, the next danger, always running, running and never looking back.

Except that wasn’t true, was it? She understood now. He did look back. He looked back all the time because he had something to look back to, something immeasurable that he had lost. He had a particular face, a particular mood, a particular voice Donna had learned early on and dubbed his Rose mood, to herself. They would visit a planet, see an object or say a word and he would freeze ever so slightly, a distant look on his beautifully pained face, perhaps draw his long fingers over the object affectionately, or whisper something soft and musical to himself and then, just as quickly, he would bubble and babble and if his joviality was a bit too forced, his movements a bit too jerky, his eyes a bit too bright, she would pretend not to notice. She never asked and he never offered.

She felt tears well up in her eyes and she stumbled back to sit heavily at the foot of the bed. She teased him about it all the time, him being a martian, an alien, something beyond her ken only to smack him back in his place, but here, in this, he was just like anyone else who had ever loved and lost and as his friend she wanted to do anything she could to shield him from this pain. The lights dimmed and then brightened again and Donna raised her tear-wet eyes to the ceiling, understanding perhaps that the ship had somehow heard her and acknowledged her offer. Now that was weird.

Donna knew now he had been mourning Rose when they first met and she cringed a little, remembering how she had shouted at him and flaunted that jacket in his face, oblivious to his pain. He had been ready to die then, to give up and drown under London, lonely and miserable. And he had been mourning her ever since, her untouched room a testament to his silent, hopeless vigil, his devotion and despair. How could he not when she had seen now how happy he had been? How long had it been for him? Years, she suspected but to a time whatist like him, how long was that, really? 

She was just contemplating the longevity of his mourning when suddenly the pink door burst open and the object of her thoughts stumbled in. He didn’t seem to notice her at first, which struck her as odd because he, quite annoyingly, generally noticed everything. Unless she wanted him to notice something, that is. She shot up off the bed and dashed a hand across her cheeks, trying to wipe away the evidence of her tears. Donna held her breath as he walked over to the dresser and lovingly caressed each of the objects there, as if he knew every item’s location and feel by heart, lingering over some more than others. Finally his eyes traced down the mirror and she watched his lanky body startle as he saw her standing there watching him.

“Donna? What are you doing in here? How did you get here?” the Doctor asked, whirling to face her, his voice high and his eyebrows higher still in his hair.

“All the hallways kept leading me here. It wouldn’t let me get to the kitchen,” Donna responded carefully, watching him. He seemed a bit more errant, a bit more wild than usual.

“She,” he corrected automatically.

“What?” Donna asked, unable to stop herself.

“She wouldn’t let you get to the kitchen,” he said. His eyes strayed from her face to the bunched up duvet at the foot of the bed where she had been sitting and suddenly the air between the crackled with tension. Like a coiled spring, he leapt forward, his eyes first on the bed and then darting around the room. “What did you do? Did you touch anything?” he snarled, turning his face to her and she stepped away from him, backing away from the sudden fire in his expression.

“I just sat there for a second,” she responded, trying to sooth him.

“Well, don’t! Don’t touch anything! Don’t look at anything. Don’t breathe on anything,” he said icily, turning quickly from her to the duvet, smoothing it out and fidgeting with its fuschia surface for an inordinate amount of time. “In fact, get out. You shouldn’t be here.”

She balked a bit at being ordered around by him and when Donna didn’t move he rounded on her again, back to snarling. “Get out!” he yelled and she reeled back from him once more but less from his tone and volume (was she a Noble or wasn’t she?) and more from his breath.

“Doctor, are you drunk?” she asked incredulously. She had never seen him drunk. Didn’t even know he could get drunk.

“Might be,” he responded tersely. “Doesn’t matter. Now leave.” He turned from her back to his task of smoothing away invisible wrinkles in the duvet. 

“No,” she said stubbornly, suddenly understanding his more erratic than normal movements. “Why are you drunk? And what did you come in here for? Whose room is this?” she asked, knowing full well the answer to at least the third question and probably the answers to the first two.

“My current personal state, my reasons for both it and my current location and the owner of this room are none of your business,” he said. “Out,” he ordered once more, not even turning to face her.

“Can’t,” Donna said, smugly. “Door’s gone.”


	2. Opening Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tongue loosened a bit, the Doctor opens up to Donna about the former occupant of the room with the pink door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * I will, some day, write up that other incident because tipsy, jealous Nine is just too fantastic to pass up. =)

_“Can’t,” Donna said, smugly. “Door’s gone.”_

He whirled around to gape at the door-less wall, stumbling a bit at the quick movement and started muttering under his breath, musical but harsh sounds falling from his lips, sounds which she didn’t think were probably endearments.

The lights flickered dangerously and finally he raised defeated eyes up at the ceiling before huffing “Fine” and sinking onto the bed. Donna, unsure of what to do now, started to reach forward to remove some of the haphazardly piled clothing from the armchair next to the bed but froze at the strangled noise that came from the Doctor. Very carefully, instead she lowered herself to sit crosslegged on the floor between a pair of precarious red heels and an open, discarded COSMO. Only then did she notice how comfortable he seemed to be sitting on that bed despite his annoyance toward her and the Doctor-head shaped indent in the pillow.

Oh, God. He came in here to sleep, surrounded by her things and her memory. She felt tears well up in her eyes again and he lifted his head suddenly to look at her as she sniffed loudly. That seemed to break his taciturn silence and he said, softly, so softly she almost couldn’t hear it, “Rose’s room.”

“I know,” she said softly back to him and he returned his head to his hands once again. They both sat in silence for a few more moments before he threw back his shoulders and did what he did best. He changed the subject.

“Interesting feeling, being drunk. Haven’t been drunk before, not like this,” he said suddenly, startling Donna.

“You’ve never been drunk before?” Donna asked, incredulously. Now that, that, was martian.

“Not in this body, no,” he responded, ignoring Donna’s raised eyebrow. She didn’t question him on it. Usually when he said odd things like that, it was best just to let him babble for a while and he’d answer her unspoken question on his own. “Only once before in the last one,” he continued. “Happened a lot faster this time. I was different man back then. I’m a bit thinner,” he said, matter of factly.

“You’re skinny as a strip of bacon!” Donna exclaimed, still not quite understanding him but following his lead on the subject change. There was still no door.

“Was her fault then, too,” he said, drifting back into melancholy for a second. Well that explained the “why” although she had guessed it had probably been Rose. “She was going out with Jack. Out to a nightclub. To drink. And dance. With Jack.” He emphasized each of those short sentences as if they were utter crimes and as if Donna should know what they meant. Donna didn’t know who Jack was or the significance of the dancing but she’d been around enough drunks and enough blokes to know that she should agree with him.

“Uh-huh,” she agreed, hoping to keep him talking. “And she didn’t ask you to go?” 

“Oh, no. She did. Quite a lot, actually,” the Doctor responded, looking at her like she was a bit daft. “I said no, of course. I was being difficult. I wasn’t an easy bloke to live with back then,” he said and Donna snorted. As if he was easy to live with now. “I thought if I said no she’d back down and stay in with me. Where I probably would have pretended to ignore her.” Donna looked at him incredulously and he seemed amused for a moment. “Difficult,” he said again.

“But she didn’t. She changed into a, a something, well couldn’t be considered a dress, not enough of it, that certainly and utterly should have been illegal - well - would have been on several planets anyway and those blasted red shoes and swanned off. With her Captain.” He scrubbed a hand across his face.

“So, I decided if my two idiot ape companions were both going off to get drunk then I could too. Hadn’t done it. Sounded like a good idea. Drown my sorrows and all that. Forget for a while that pretty boy’s hands might be on her.”

“You really didn’t like him, did you?” Donna asked, wanting to laugh slightly at the idea of the Doctor getting drunk over a girl. The laugh died quickly though, when she realized that’s just what he’d done now.

“Who? Jack? Of course I like Jack! Good man. Rebuilt the Earth. Wrong, but good,” he said effusively. “Just liked him better when his hands weren’t on Rose. Didn’t like him at all then. Once we established that, he was a good man. Rose was off-limits.”

“Except to you?” Donna asked, going for a tease.

“No, no, no,” he slurred a bit, waving his hands in front of his face. “Especially to me. Off limits. Offity-off-off limits.” While he seemed momentarily mesmerized by the hand waving in front of his face, Donna frowned. Maybe she had misjudged his relationship with Rose.

“So what happened then?” she asked, carefully trying to draw more out of him, to push him just enough so he would share and not clam up.

“Got throughly and utterly pissed. Woulda done Jackie proud,” he sniggered and then suddenly sobered immediately, leaving Donna to wonder who Jackie was. “Didn’t know how much to drink...went a bit too far, too quick. New experience and all that. Wasn’t helping anyway. The more I drank, the more I thought about what Rose could be doing and they’d only been gone a few minutes. Consequently, do you have any idea what drinking four Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters does to a person? If you do, let me know, because I don’t really remember.”

“I’d just decided to give it up and end it all -”

“You were going to kill yourself over a little dancing?” Donna interrupted impatiently, immediately worried about his current state.

“What? No! Of course not. I was just going to undrunk myself. De-drunk myself? Ooo, de-drunk. That’s fun to say. De-drunked Doctor. How do you say that?” he asked.

“Sober up?” Donna offered, with a raised eyebrow.

“That’s it! Sober up. Brilliant, you, Donna Noble!” he said, flashing a smile at her. “Anyway, was just about to sober up -”

“You can do that?” she interrupted again. 

“‘Course I can,” he responded, getting annoyingly uppity as he was wont to do, earning an eyeroll from Donna. “Just a few chemical reactions in the right places and WHAM! alcohol neutralized.”

She opened her mouth to ask him why he didn’t just do that now but closed it quickly, realizing that without the alcohol, there was no way he would be talking to her like this.

“Anyway, once again, was just about to sober myself up when she came back in the door. And do you know why she came back, Donna Noble?” he asked with a sly, self-satisfied smile.

“Because she loved you?” Donna blurted out and then kicked herself. The Doctor blanched, all the colour draining from his face and she watched as he began to drag up the walls that usually surrounded him. His hands fisted in the duvet around him and she saw for a brief moment the pain he tried so often to hide from her. She was about to apologize, to try and backtrack but before she could, she watched in astonishment again, as he smoothed out the clenched fabric from each hand and then calmly smiled at her as though she hadn’t said anything.

“I’d nicked her ID,” he said, grinning manically and Donna did what she always had done before and pretended not to see the sadness behind the automatic pull of facial muscles.

“You didn’t!” she exclaimed, trying to match his enthusiasm, pulling them past her slip. No mentioning the L-word then.

“I did,” he responded. “I’d say I wasn’t proud, but I was, rather. She came back and found me and called Jack. Decided to stay in to take care of me. Me. Hah!”

“I take it you didn’t tell her you could sober yourself up?” Donna teased, again with the raised eyebrow.

His face immediately darkened and this time he didn’t try to hide the pain from his expression or his tone. “No, I didn’t,” he said, his voice back to whisper. “Didn’t tell her a lot of things,” he said, his voice a raw cacophony of hurt and heartbreak.

Donna didn’t say anything. What could she? She wanted so badly to help him, this poor, wonderful broken alien man in front of her, but what could she possibly say? So she watched him and offered her silent support from her position on the floor in front of him.

He lifted those deep, pained brown eyes up to meet hers and then asked quietly, “Would you like to see her?”


	3. Memories and Crossing Voids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor shows Donna snippets of his memories of Rose and Donna gives him hearty push in the right direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * I tried to capture the way flipping quickly through someone's emotions and memories would feel. What did you think?

_"Would you like to see her?”_

His question resonated through Donna’s mind which skittered with possibilities. What did he mean by that? Rose was gone, of that much she was sure. Did he have her body somewhere in the TARDIS? Frozen away? Under a glass box like Snow White? 

Or did he mean going back in time and seeing her when she was alive? Surely that broke one of the time-rule things he was always blithering on about.

She realized after a moment he was still watching her with those sad eyes and so she stuttered out the least offensive response she could come up with. “I already looked at all the pictures,” she said lamely, trying to ease him down.

“That’s not Rose,” he said, standing up, swaying slightly and then offering her a hand. She accepted warily, aware of his drunken equilibrium and mostly pushing herself up. 

“It’s not?” Donna asked, confused. The bright, happy blonde girl wasn’t Rose?

“No, that is what she looks like,” he responded and Donna looked at him, slightly shocked. Had she said that out loud?

“No you didn’t, but we’re holding hands and I’m a bit telepathic and drunk it’s harder to control,” he said, waving the other hand. Donna dropped his hand as if she had been burnt and that managed to elicit a small chuckle from him. 

“I mean those pictures aren't enough. Aren’t enough Rose. They don’t capture her. Nothing ever could. Everything she was, everything she meant, everything...just everything. The pictures don’t do her justice. She’s not there,” he said, walking with her out the now open door and into the console room.

“Where is she, then?” Donna asked, still a bit afraid of his answer but willing to take the risk if it was something that he was offering. How could she reject him this?

“Up here,” he said, tapping his temple lightly. Before Donna could ask him anything else, he placed his hand on the console and suddenly the room all around her lit up as if it were one giant projector screen and she was in the movie itself except she wasn’t just seeing the events unfold she was feeling them, smelling them, hearing them. She was experiencing his memories, little snatches of thought drifting into her mind from his.

_Running down a corridor. Stupid human where it isn’t supposed to be. Darkness and death. Little time. Opening a door. Warm hand. Right. Feels right. Smell of adrenaline and fear. “Run!”_

_Pretty girl. Seems familiar. How? Push. She pushes back. Clever. Bomb, right. Toss her the arm. Track her later._

_Find her again. Run away. She follows. Take her hand. Right. Feels so right. Run away again._

_Swinging through the air. Saved. Catch her. Ask her to come._

_Rejection._

_Ask her again._

_Salvation._

_The memories start to flicker by faster then, Donna just catching snippets of events, of moments, of emotions._

_World ending. “Who are you?” Hurt both ways. Chips._

_A beautiful dress. Want. Need. Can't. Shouldn't. Clasped hands in dungeon. “Together, yeah?” Together._

_Green monsters. Heavy words across a table. Worry. Held close in a cupboard._

_An old enemy. Terror. Lost her. Darkness. Found her. Breathe again._

_Idiot pretty boy. Jealousy. Satisfaction. Alone with her again._

_Try to impress. Stupid. Hurt words. Jealousy again. Dead. Alive again. Hold her through her sobs. Sorry. So sorry._

_New pretty boy. “Except with datin’ and dancin’.” Jealousy once again. Worse. Want. Need. Can’t. Shouldn’t. Want._

_Memory. Red bicycle. Last act. Father Christmas._

_Drunk. Held close. More. Want. No. Can’t. Shouldn’t._

_Cardiff. Another idiot. Life threatened. Rage. Life safe. Relief._

_Teleport. Terror. Must find her. Found her. Want. Need. Can't. Shouldn't._

_Gone. Blackness. Rage. Only rage. Darkness._

_Alive! Save her. “Worth fighting for”. Send her away._

_She returns. Terror. The Time War ends. “My Doctor”. Must save her. Love. Love her. Want. Need. Can't. Shouldn't. Right. So right._

_Dying. Reborn. Rejection. Terror again. “Can you change back?”_

_Christmas. Joy. Family. Turkey. Mistletoe. “What...on your own?” NO! Warm hand. Joy._

_Time. Plenty of time. Take it slow. Impress her. New Earth. Cat nuns. Kiss. KISS! WANT. NEED. Not her. Disappointment. Can’t. Shouldn’t. Want. Plenty of time._

_Scotland. Earth. Dinner lady. Almost told her! Not yet. Plenty of time. Too close. Can’t. Shouldn’t._

_France. Guilt. Sorry. So sorry._

_Gingerbread house. Old enemy. Don’t leave me! Same old life. Want. Need. Can’t? Shouldn’t? Plenty of time._

_Face stolen. Rage._

_Impossible planet. She knows._

_Valiant child. Lies. Plenty of time. “I believe in HER!”_

_Hands held. Ball bearings. Love her. Tell her. Not yet. Storm. Storm coming. No. Want. Need. Could? Should? Plenty of time?_

_How long? “Forever.” Promises. Love. Tell her. Not yet._

_Enemies. Enemies. Send her away. Choices. Relief. Love. Love her._

_Joy again. Everything will be ok. Want. Need. Can. Should. Will. “Mutt and Jeff!”_

_Lever. No. Slipping. No. “ROSE!” Void. Pete._

_Gone. Desolation. Empty. Wall. Gone._

_No time, no more time._

_Goodbye. “Quite right, too.” Idiot. No time. LOVE HER. Gone. Darkness. Despair. Empty._

_Memories. Every day. Object. Word. Thought. Miss her. Every day. Love her. Gone. Alone. Love her. Grief._

_Could have. Should have._

_No time._

_Never enough time._

_Her smile. Never again._

_Love her._

_Always._

Finally the images stopped flickering around her and she stumbled back, assisted onto the bench by a perfectly lucid-eyed, grim Doctor. Apparently he’d ‘de-drunked’ himself. They stared at one another in silence, each acknowledging the tear tracks of the other and understanding. “I’m sorry,” Donna whispered to him.

He jerked his head once, his eyes travelling down to his trainers. “Me too,” he said quietly, moving to sit beside her, both of them lost in thought. Donna tried to work her way through all her new knowledge of him, of the vastness of his love and the depth of his sorrow. There was nothing else she could say to make him better. 

“She’s not dead but trapped, then?” she asked after a few moments of silence. 

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I can’t get to her. I spent almost a year after I ran into you the first time trying to find a crack, a fissure, a hole that would allow me to get to her and not tear the universes apart. Sometimes I barely cared if I did. I didn’t sleep, didn’t eat, barely stayed alive. But I failed, obviously. I failed her again. Can’t make it through the Void without another Time Lord and without Gallifrey, the walls are closed. She’s gone.”

After a long pause he offered, “Five years. Five years ago today.” Well that explained the drinking, Donna thought.

“The first man...ears and leather. That was you?” she asked, wanting to change the subject even one iota from his grief. His head jerked once. “How?” she asked. Being in his memories, Donna had known, without a doubt, that the stoic man she’d seen in Rose’s photos was him but she didn’t understand. How could he be that man and this one?

“Time Lord,” the Doctor said beside her, pointing an index finger at his chest as if that answered everything.

Donna gaped at him. There was alien and there was ALIEN. This was, most certainly, ALIEN.

“You mean one day you could just up and turn into a different person and I would have had no idea?” Donna asked, her voice rising in pitch at him despite the emotional upheaval they’d both just undergone.

“It doesn’t just happen willy-nilly, Donna. I have to be dying first. Time Lords we can...we can sort of cheat death. If I’m dying, I can change every cell in my body and turn into a new man. Limited time offer, though. Thirteen chances. That’s it,” he finished tiredly.

In the face of his sorrow Donna decided, valiantly, to throw out the impulse to yell at him for not telling her he might up and turn into someone new. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed onto the most recent thread of conversation. “Thirteen? Which one are you then?”

“Tenth,” he said and silence fell once again. Donna was thinking heavily beside him, he could hear the buzz of her thoughts. Why had he shown her all of that? Why was he telling her all of this? 

“So...you’re telling me that there are nine other versions of you out there blundering around through time and space?” Donna asked.

“Yes,” he said. 

“And they all do the same things you do? Wander through the universe getting arrested and causing trouble?”

“More or less.”

“Mostly more, I would wager,” Donna quipped and was rewarded with a slight tweak of a smile. He felt like she was building up to something but he couldn’t for the lives of him figure out what it was. He never could fathom human women. Rose proved that to him again and again. Stop it. Stop thinking about her.

“So...ten Doctors, and don’t even get me started on THAT, martian man, all magnets for trouble, a finite amount of filthy places with evil dictators and nasty plots -”

Interrupting her, the Doctor said “Actually, Donna, I think you’ll find that the number of evil dictators and nasty plots is rather infinite. In fact the Hannibal Lector Reoccurrance principal states - 

“That you have to run into yourself at some point,” Donna continued smoothly as if he hadn’t said anything at all. “Isn’t that right?” she said, looking at him now as if he was being daft, as if she were spelling out something very simple for him.

“Well, yes. It does happen on occasion,” he replied, puzzled. “It rarely ever works out well for me though,” he continued, remembering Two and Three and, more recently, a rather painful encounter with himself in the leather, as Jackie called him. 

He closed his eyes. Impossible. It was impossible not to think about her. He thought about her all the time. For ages he thought he would simply not be able to teach himself how to live without her yet here he was...limping along, missing some vital part of himself, continuing on because he had no other choice. Because it’s what she would have wanted. He’d never be whole again, not without her because no matter how many lives he had left, she had claimed his hearts and they were with her, wherever she was, far far away.

When he opened his eyes, he found Donna staring at him impatiently as though he was an errant child that was taking too long to finish an absurdly easy maths problem.

“What, Donna?” he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. He may have neutralized the alcohol in his system but something...Donna probably, was still endeavoring to give him a headache.

“What? What do you mean ‘What, Donna?’? You need another Time Lord to get Rose, right?” she asked, still looking at him like he was daft.

“Yes. But they’re gone, Donna. Dead. In the Time War.”

“All except 10,” she said, smugly.

“What?” he asked.

“YOU!” she said, exasperated. “Go get one of the old you’s and bring her back! The brooding bloke in the leather wouldn’t be too bad...he’s right up my alley,” Donna said, enjoying the utterly terrified look that comment brought to the Doctor’s face. Good. Now she was sure he was paying attention.

Trying to ignore the surge of terror brought on by the idea of Donna fancying his past self and trying to ignore the surge of hope charging through his tired soul, he sputtered “But I can’t go! The Time War...it’s too late. The walls are closed now.”

Donna stood in front of him and crossed her arms. “So this War thingy,” she said and he cringed, “it happened before the first one of you was born?”

“Loomed, not born, Donna, and no,” he said, not entirely sure when or how this conversation had snowballed so far out of his control. That seemed to happen a lot with Donna. “No, it was...it was at the end of my eighth life,” he answered eventually, unwilling to share that horror with her yet.

“So then you ask one of the earlier ones from before the war to go get her and you do the helping through,” Donna finished primly, looking for all the world like a very smug cat. “He does the actual going because the war hasn’t happened yet and then, because you can meet up without bringing down the horsemen of the apocalypse, he brings her to you and then she’s yours again.”

She could be right. Could be. He could...maybe. Yes. No. Maybe?

“But I’d remember! If I’d gone to get her in the past, I’d remember going and bringing her back,” he said, leaping up from the bench to pace, desperately looking at the small flame of possibility, the impossible little flicker of hope starting to burn.

“Oi! Aren’t you the one that’s always babbling on about time changing? ‘Don’t touch that, Donna! Don’t say that, Donna! Don’t pet the fluffy puppies, Donna! Time is in flux, Donna’,” she mimicked, goading him now, trying to force him into thinking about this, to do something. He wasn’t shutting down. Not now. Not when she (and he) were so close. God, she hoped she was right about this.

She had promised the TARDIS, after all.

“Not for me. Not for a Time Lord. Doesn’t work like that. I’d remember. I’d have to remember. Unless...” He ran a hand through his unruly hair and, leaning on the console, he closed his eyes and traced his way through his memories once again. 

And suddenly Donna was back to seeing the pieces of his mind projected brightly in the console room although she was sure he hadn’t done it on purpose this time. Flickers of different faces passed by: old and white haired, mop top and recorder, dandy and cape, teeth, hair and scarf, blonde and cricket whites, curly hair and riotous coat, question marks and brolly, waistcoat and cravat. 

_There!_ he thought. Waistcoat and cravat. Kind hearts and poetic soul. A dreamer, a romantic, a lover. Lover? A locked box that sang to him of the man he used to be. 

The Doctor pulled his hands from the console. He could feel them now, distant memories held tightly just out of reach with a Time-locked seal on them, unable to be opened yet. Not now. Wasn’t the time. That little flicker of hope was quickly growing to a blaze, a forest fire of possibility. It could be that chest contained some horrible secret from the Time War, locked away to keep him from going mad. 

Or it could be Rose.

He chose Rose.

He’d choose Rose every time.

“Well?” Donna asked, noticing the way his whole body was changing, glowing with possibilities, emblazoned with hope. 

“First of all you, Donna Noble, are brilliant. One of a kind. Remarkable.”

“And?” Donna prompted.

“And...we’ve got some work to do!” he said. And, for the very first time since she’d known him, Donna Noble watched him become the Doctor who smiled with his whole body, the Doctor whose happiness seemed to permeate his very being, the Doctor who radiated life and laughter, the Doctor who would, once again, find his love.

His Rose.


	4. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uh-oh.

“Uh-oh.”

“What do you mean ‘uh-oh’?” Donna squeaked at him. He’d been standing around, fiddling with some ancient looking telephone thing for ages. And then he’d stood around with his eyes closed, hands on the console with the Time Rotor glowing for ages after that. She’d expected more...well...more SOMETHING when he’d decided to contact his Eighth self and go after Rose. Especially after he had explained to her at length that they had one shot and one shot only to make this work.

“Whenever you say ‘uh-oh’, bad things happen. Bad, bad, terrible things, you skinny pillock! What did you do? ” 

“It’s not that bad,” he said, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck and pull at his ear. It wasn’t. It could be. No, no, no. There was no room for bad. This was his one chance to get Rose back.

And he might have messed it up for good.

“What. Did. You. Do?” Donna asked. 

“Well, I got a hold of him or his TARDIS, rather,” the Doctor said, squirming again trying not to panic, trying not to show his brilliant companion whose brilliant idea this had been in the first place that he may have just cocked it up and ruined, well, everything. Because if this failed, if he had reawakened that blaze of hope only to have it crushed out, the pain of his broken hearts might very well kill him. “And I got him successfully through the Void, no problems there, thanks old girl,” he said, patting the console. “He’s there, in Pete’s world, no problems.”

“And?” Donna said, crossing her arms and looking at him in a very alarming fashion.

“Weeelll...it’s a very delicate procedure, only enough energy for one try, one try only, must concentrate, very little window for actual communication, crossing Timelines and the Void, must be very careful with the exchange -” 

“Doctor,” Donna interrupted threateningly.

“Ididn’thaveachancetoexplainanythingtohim,” the Doctor blurted out.

“You didn’t what?” she asked, incredulously.

“I didn’t have a chance to explain anything to him,” he repeated, slower this time, sinking back onto the bench.

“So, let me get this straight,” Donna said and he cringed. He didn’t want to hear it. “In the one chance we have to get her, you just sent a past you, a you who has never met Rose and who Rose has never met, into a parallel world with no instructions, no idea how he got there, and no reason for him to even find her and you thought what exactly was going to happen? That she’d hear the TARDIS whining and come running? That they would just bump into each other on the street? That they’ll figure it out on their own and he’ll bring her back here anyway?”

“Well, I am brilliant, any of me, after all,” he said, weakly. “And so is Rose,” he said, his voice growing stronger. She would find him. She always found him. He believed in her, right? Now he’d just have to believe in himself a little as well.

“So now what?” Donna asked, sensing his tension and his apprehension.

“Now...we wait,” the Doctor said firmly, turning from her to stare resolutely at the door.

Donna heaved a sigh and turned with him to face the door. “Well, at least you sent the dishy one,” she muttered.


End file.
